Students in the culinary program at Jasper Place High School in Edmonton, Canada (yes, Canada apparently has culinary programs in high school) probably think farm-to-table restaurants are a pretty cute idea. Oh, you have a farm on your roof? You must be so proud. We have a farm ON OUR ACTUAL TABLE.
The students are raising 100 tilapia, which they'll cook for college credit in the spring.
Like deep-fried cake on a stick (or regional variants), butter sculpture is a staple of state fair tradition that will never go away even if it's unnecessary and kinda gross. But at least the Pennsylvania state fair is using its behemoth butter statuary as a source of alternative energy.
The New York City parks department's annual Winter Jam in Prospect Park has been nixed due to unseasonably warm temperatures -- it's kind of hard to have winter sports demonstrations when you don't have any winter. (There is basically no way we could improve on the Times headline about the decision, so we're just gonna let that sit up there so you can appreciate it.)
In 2010, investors and governments poured $187 billion into renewables and just $157 billion into natural gas, oil and coal. A big chunk of the renewables investment ($66 billion in subsidies) represents forward-thinking governments nurturing their domestic renewable energy sectors through incentives. But renewables will soon be kicking fossil fuels’ asses even without that support, reports Bloomberg.
Given how valuable space is in New York City, the city's rooftops are strangely empty. But a proposal from the city's planning department could change that by making 1,200 acres of commercial rooftops available for urban farmers to open greenhouses across the city.
City law imposes restrictions on how tall buildings are allowed to be in different areas, which is one reasons why rooftops stay empty -- developers often build to the maximum height possible. The planning department's proposal would allow buildings to add rooftop greenhouses above regular height restrictions. And according to a study from the Urban Design Lab, that would mean 1,200 acres of empty, flat rooftops would be eligible for green penthouses.
Here are a bunch of (simulated) apps that, judging by Apple's recent treatment of similarly socially conscious fare, will never, ever make it onto an actual iPhone.
The Onion reports that scientists have figured out the definitive solution to overpopulation, resource depletion, and environmental carnage: We just need to kill off a third of the human race. Who wants to go first?
Now that the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage plan has been scrapped, a nuclear commission needs to find a town that wants to host the repository.
Transocean isn't legally responsible for some of the pollution from the Deepwater Horizon spill.
Scientists mapped the Amazon in 3-D.
The plan for protecting New Orleans from hurricanes requires restoring wetlands.
Newt Gingrich is gunning to become our first nerd president, and obviously a nerd president's first order of business is securing voting rights for the moon. (Maybe right after knighting George Lucas.) Gingrich wants to establish a "permanent base on the moon" by the end of his first term, and once it has 13,000 people he'd like to make it a state. He'll probably even volunteer to help get the population numbers up by impregnating hot moon babes.
A study just out from the University of Kent inquires into the nature of conspiracy theorists, and comes out with this interesting or maybe obvious conclusion: It's not that they really believe what they're saying. It's more that they don't trust authority figures on the matter.
